The 28-day strike of 1,500 nurses and professional/technical staff, represented by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), beat back a long list of concessionary demands at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. Significantly, the hospital backed off its proposed “gag” clause which threatened staff with discipline and fines for any negative public statement about Temple. Further, the administration was forced to reinstate a limited dependent tuition benefit after illegally eliminating it unilaterally in March 2009. (For details on the settlement, see my May 21 article in labornotes.org).

The conclusions drawn by the influential feminist, Natasha Walter, in her latest book, Living Dolls, may surprise readers of her earlier material. In an honest reappraisal of her position, Walter now accepts that sexism and discrimination against women are ever more widespread, and that it is not possible to separate the personal from the political in capitalist society. CHRISTINE THOMAS reviews this change.

In the largest nurses’ strike in U.S. history, 12,000 walked out of 14 Twin Cities (Minnesota) hospitals on June 10th, and are set to strike again. Prepared by months of big informational pickets, billboard ads, and internal organizing, the 24 hour strike was solid. The chants on the large and lively picket lines were frequently drowned out by honking cars showing the broad public support.

For decades, women have had more trouble paying for their health care and medications than men (Gallup-Health-ways Well-Being Index). More than one in seven women lack insurance coverage. The main reason for this disparity is insurance being tied to full-time employment, while according to the Government Accountability Office, only 52% of women (compared to 73% of men) are employed full-time. Women who work part time or have made the decision to stay at home are forced to pay all of their medical expenses out of pocket, or vie for private insurance on the free market.

Though restrictions on abortion got the most attention in the media, the recent health care bill fails women in a variety of ways beyond President Obama’s anti-abortion executive order.

International Women’s Day (IWD) was founded in 1910 in order to confront the great inequalities women faced in the labor force and society as a whole. Unfortunately, one hundred years later, women still make up a majority of the world’s poor.

A century ago, socialist women established International Women’s Day (IWD) as a way to reach out to working-class women. At the Second International Congress of Socialist Women in 1910, Clara Zetkin, chair and delegate from the German Social Democratic Party, proposed IWD as a day to campaign for economic and political equality for women. The very next year, on March 19, 1911, one million women and men in four European countries took part in the first IWD events organized around the slogan, “The vote for women will unite our strength in the struggle for socialism.”

Apparently, the Democrats in Congress are not only perfectly happy to work with Republicans on bank bailouts – they are also willing to work with the Republicans to further erode the right of working-class women to decide if they want to have children or not.

Among the harshest effects of increasing global job scarcity is an increase in people entering the global sex industry, an overwhelming majority of whom are women and girls.

The legal drama in Hubei province after a young pedicurist stabbed two government officials, killing one, has generated an unprecedented groundswell of sympathy for the arrested woman among netizens and Chinese youth. Deng Yujiao, 21, was arrested after she stabbed the two men with a fruit knife on May 10 in a hotel in Badong, central Hubei province. The two officials had demanded “special services” – a euphemism for sex – and reportedly threw a wad of money at the young woman. Now Deng is the centre of an unprecedented campaign of internet activism demanding leniancy for her and targeting this as a typical example of the arrogance of power-crazed local officials, but also an exposure of the lack of protection of women’s rights in China.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is widespread. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine reports that an estimated 25.5 to 53.6% of women will experience IPV in their lives. Although same sex couples and heterosexual men are also victims, women are affected in greater numbers.

On January 15, 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the finest brains of the German working class and its most heroic figures, were brutally murdered by the bloodthirsty, defeated German military, backed to the hilt by the cowardly social-democratic leaders. On this important anniversary, Peter Taaffe looks at Luxemburg’s inspirational, revolutionary legacy.

On average, in the U.S. women make 76% of men’s wages. Three-fourths of poverty in the U.S. is concentrated in women and their children. This number is not shrinking, but growing, particularly among unmarried women, single parents, widows, and displaced homemakers.

Anucha Browne Sanders’ case against the New York Knicks shows that sexual harassment is an extremely pervasive phenomenon. It is easy to assume that such behavior only occurs in situations where women are in virtually powerless subordinate positions. However, all women workers face this threat.

The first Women’s Day celebration in the United States was a demonstration in 1909 by working women and their supporters for better wages, shorter working hours, better working conditions, and the right to vote. Despite many social and political improvements for women in the 20th Century, the fundamental problems of yesterday are still the fundamental problems of today, particularly for poor and working-class women.